As Kremlin leader heads for China on visit, is Moscow's hand being withdrawn from the Ukraine crisis?

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered Kremlin troops to pull back from the border with Ukraine after weeks of military exercises that the Kiev government and Western allies said heightened tensions between the two former Soviet republics.

Putin, who heads to China for economic and political talks this week, said spring military drills in the Rostov, Belgorod and Bryansk regions had been completed and that troops were to return to their normal bases, the Interfax news agency reported without further detail.

CaptionUkraine clash

Ivan Sekretarev / Associated Press

Bodies covered with blankets lie in a field near the village of Blahodatne in eastern Ukraine after a clash between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists.

Bodies covered with blankets lie in a field near the village of Blahodatne in eastern Ukraine after a clash between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists. (Ivan Sekretarev / Associated Press)

A pro-Russian fighter uses his cellphone to take a photo of a burning cafe during a clash between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militants at a checkpoint outside Slovyansk.

A pro-Russian fighter uses his cellphone to take a photo of a burning cafe during a clash between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militants at a checkpoint outside Slovyansk. (Rafael Yaghobzadeh / Associated Press)

Russian officials had said two weeks ago that their forces were withdrawing from the 1,000-mile border with Ukraine, although North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials in Brussels said they had seen no sign of a pullback.

Top NATO officials said last month that satellite surveillance showed the Kremlin had amassed at least 40,000 soldiers on Ukraine's border.

My guess is that the real results of the "referendum" put on by the pro-Russia goons were not very encouraging for the Kremlin. Putin is probably realizing that occupying and ruling over an unwilling population, might be too costly for Russia. Or he could be lying through his teeth...

Ukrainians are set go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president to replace ousted former leader Viktor Yanukovich, who fled a popular rebellion in late February and has taken refuge in Russia. Yanukovich, a Kremlin ally, sparked fury among western Ukraine's pro-European citizens when he abandoned an economic and political association agreement with the European Union in November.

It wasn't clear if the troop withdrawal order was a further signal that the Kremlin will let Sunday's election take place without interference. Armed pro-Russia separatists have occupied government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions over the last two months and vowed to prevent the Kiev-administered election from taking place in the areas they control.

The separatists, who have barricaded themselves in seized government buildings, organized their own vote on May 11, after which they declared independence from Ukraine. Some self-styled leaders of the breakaway areas have appealed to Russia for annexation, as occurred in Ukraine's Crimea region in March.

Ukraine's embattled interim leaders, who took power after Yanukovich fled, have accused Putin of orchestrating the violent takeovers in eastern Ukraine, and U.S. and European governments have also blamed the Kremlin.

But Putin has been silent in the face of the separatists' appeals for union with Russia, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that Moscow was prepared to do business with an elected president in Ukraine.

Thousands of people clutching flowers and candles lined up Tuesday on a typically bleak, gray afternoon to pay their last respects to Boris Nemtsov, the charismatic politician and opposition leader who was gunned down last week in the shadow of the Kremlin.

The latest video from Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, which shows the beheaded bodies of two men accused of spying, does not offer the same slick cinematography that the Islamic State uses to shock the West and lure recruits.

China began its annual political high season on Tuesday with pomp and circumstance at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. President Xi Jinping and more than 2,000 delegates -- including former basketball star Yao Ming -- convened for the opening session of the nation’s top legislative...

India’s top diplomat was in Pakistan on Tuesday for meetings that both sides described as a first step toward resuming talks on nuclear security, terrorism and a wide range of disputes between the archrival nations.

Standing at the rostrum of the House of Representatives, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly challenged the Obama administration’s top foreign policy goal Tuesday, saying negotiations with Iran were headed for “a very bad deal; we’re better off without...